To see the original "Crescent of Embrace"
and "Bowl of Embrace" design graphics, go to the "supplementary
material" page.

Instructions for verifying a few basic
claims about the crescent design (including the 4 listed in our
petition), starting from source documents:

1. Just by looking, you can see that
the original Crescent of Embrace design was laid out roughly in the
configuration of an Islamic crescent and star flag:

Left:
publicity shot of winning Crescent of Embrace design, from Paul Murdoch
Architects, 2005 (from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, September 8, 2005). Right:
Wikipedia’s “typical”
Islamic crescent and star, colored red and viewed from a similar orientation.
The copse of trees that sits roughly in the position of the star on an Islamic
flag marks the crash site.

2. The giant crescent points almost
exactly to Mecca, and architect Paul Murdoch proves that this orientation is
intentional by repeating it exactly in the crescents of trees that surround the
Tower of Voices part of the memorial. Instructions here.

(Very briefly, to verify the rough Mecca-orientation
of the giant crescent, just print out the direction to Mecca from the crash site
as generated by the prayer direction calculator at
Islam.com and place it
over the site-plan view of the Crescent of
Embrace to see that the Mecca-direction line bisects the crescent. Takes
literally 2 minutes. If Islam.com is not working, there is another
Mecca-direction calculator at
QiblaLocator.com.)

3. There will be 44 inscribed translucent memorial blocks
emplaced along the flight path, matching the number of passengers, crew, AND
terrorists. (Also takes about 2 minutes to verify. Just
open up the design drawings and count.)

4. The giant crescent remains completely
intact in the so-called redesign. (For full details
visit this link. Short version
below.)

The design was originally described as a broken circle, and
it is still described as a broken circle, with the unbroken part of the circle
(the crescent) remaining exactly as it was . The only change was the inclusion
of an extra arc of trees that explicitly represents a broken off part of the
circle. Here is an animated graphic, showing this lone change:

Animation superimposes the Bowl of Embrace redesign on the
original Crescent of Embrace design, then takes away everything but the
changes (the flashing extra arc of trees).

Now instead of the broken off part of the circle being removed
entirely, a chunk of the broken off part of the circle remains floating out
behind the mouth of the crescent, which remains completely unchanged. The
unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of
9/11, is
still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent, still pointing to Mecca.

5. The 9/11 date will be inscribed on
a separate section of Memorial Wall, set in the
exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag.

6. There are only 38 Memorial Groves
instead of the advertised 40, forming a set of
19 nested crescents: one for each 9/11 terrorist.

Again, Paul Murdoch proves intent by
repeating this feature in the Tower of Voices part of the memorial, which is
surrounded by a second set of 19 nested crescents. (Gets complicated
conceptually, but still trivially easy to verify. It is just a matter of
counting.)

7. The Tower of Voices is a year round
accurate Islamic sundial.

This is NOT trivial to verify (and is a low
priority for that reason). Takes probably a
whole day of careful work, but you can see
the overt similarity just by looking:

Traditional Islamic sundial, left. The
gnomon's shadow is just reaching the outer curved vertical, indicating time for
Islamic afternoon prayers. Tower of Voices, right. Shadow calculations confirm
that, when the tower's shadow reaches the inner arc of trees, it will also be
time for Islamic afternoon prayers.

The full list of Islamic and terrorist
memorializing features is much longer. For the full exposé,
read my Crescent of Betrayal book. (Preliminary draft available for
free download until the print version
arrives in bookstores.)

Features 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 above were singled
out for mention in our
petition to stop
the crescent design. Short explanations with graphical demonstrations were
included on the back of our paper petition, and by
link from our electronic petition.

Below is my original "proof" page, as posted
in June 2007 (still perfectly adequate):

Supplementary
press-release: enough evidence to constitute proof

Six short exhibits provide proof that the half-mile
wide central crescent of the Crescent/Bowl of Embrace design is oriented on
Mecca, and that this orientation is not a coincidence and that it remains intact
in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. The book provides
multiply redundant proof of these and many other terrorist-memorializing
features.

Exhibit 1. Crescent
and star.

When the winning Crescent of Embrace design for the Flight
93 memorial was unveiled in September 2005,
onlookerswere
aghast
to see planted on the crash site, not just a gigantic Islamic crescent, but a
full naked Islamic crescent-and-star flag:

The copse of trees that sits in roughly the position of the
star on an Islamic flag sits just above Flight 93’s point of impact. Inside the
copse of trees sit the upper and lower sections of memorial wall. (Flag
array compiled by Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics.)

Exhibit 2. Not just a
crescent, but an Islamic crescent.

Architect Paul Murdoch
denied that his crescent is similar to an Islamic crescent:

“It’s a generic term for a form
that’s basically a curved line,” he said. “Sure, there is an Islamic crescent.
But it has a very different form.

“Theirs is a lunar crescent. Ours isn’t based on that.”

In fact, Murdoch’s crescent and the Islamic crescent share the same distinctive
geometry, as can be seen by overlaying the two:

This sequence of images shows the crescent from the Tunisian flag, rotated
to match the Crescent of Embrace site-plan. (Similar to
Zombie's graphic from 2 days after the Crescent of Embrace was unveiled,
except Zombie rotated the site-plan to match the orientation of the crescent on
the Tunisian flag instead of vice versa.)

Murdoch’s crescent has the same circular-inner-arc geometry
of an Islamic crescent, it covers the same 2/3rds of a circle of arc as a
typical Islamic crescent, and it has the red color that is most associated with the Islamic
crescent. In contrast, the inner arc of a lunar crescent is elliptical (it is
the circular dividing line between the lit and dark halves of the moon, viewed
from an oblique angle), and it only covers a half a circle of arc.

Mr. Murdoch claims to be familiar with the Islamic
crescent, and the similarity of his crescent to the Islamic crescent would
suggests that he is familiar with the Islamic crescent, which would seem
to make his statement to the press about his crescent having a different
geometry than the Islamic crescent a case of plain deception.

Exhibit 3. It points
towards Mecca.

Shortly after the unveiling of the Crescent of Embrace, the
anonymous “Etaoin Shrdlu” posted a
graphic demonstrating that a person facing
directly into the Crescent of Embrace would be facing almost exactly at Mecca,
the direction that Muslims face for prayer. Over the next couple of weeks,
severalbloggersverified this result, both mathematically and graphically.

The simplest demonstration of Mecca orientation was put
together by
Sarah Wells at the bluemerle blog who found an Islamic website (Islam.com)
that will generate a graphic of the direction to Mecca (the “qibla” direction)
for any city in America. Superimposing the qibla graphic for Pittsburgh on the
Crescent site-plan, Sara was able to demonstrate, not just that the Crescent of
Embrace is oriented on Mecca, but that this is indeed the direction that Muslims
face for prayer.

Below is a recreation of Sarah’s graphic, with the exact
orientation of the Crescent added. It starts with the direction to Mecca from
the city of Somerset Pennsylvania (about ten miles west of the Flight 93
crash-site):

The qibla direction from Somerset PA, generated by
Islam.com.

The next step is to impose orientation lines on the
Crescent of Embrace. The orientation is defined by the crescent tips. Just
connect the most obtruding points of Crescent structure at top and bottom, then
add a perpendicular bisector:

The red arrow shows the orientation of the Crescent of
Embrace. (From screen shot of Crescent site plan, with north at top.)

To compare the two directions, just lay the Islam.com
graphic on top of the orientation of the crescent:

Overlay shows that the Crescent of Embrace is oriented just
slightly north of the exact direction to Mecca.

To be precise, the qibla from Somerset points 55° clockwise
from north, ± .1°, while a person facing directly into the Crescent of Embrace
would be pointing 53.40° from north, ± .1°. (The accuracy margin comes from
fact that there are a couple of different pixels that could plausibly be taken
as marking the furthest extents of the Crescent structure at the top and the
bottom.)

The exact direction to Mecca from the crash-site (about ten
miles east of Somerset) is 55.19° clockwise from north. Thus the Crescent of
Embrace is oriented about 1.8° north of the exact Mecca line. Instructions for
doing exact calculations are included at the end of this post, but with the
overlay method, these calculations are not necessary. One can see directly how
closely the two orientations correspond.

Exhibit 4: Not a
coincidence

If the Mecca-orientation of the giant Crescent of Embrace
were coincidental, it would still be inappropriate. We cannot use a symbol of
Islam, oriented towards the spiritual center of Islam, as the central feature of
the Flight 93 memorial, even unintentionally. But is it unintentional?

Paul Murdoch’s Crescent design includes numerous
confirmations that the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent is not a
coincidence. Consider one. In addition to its gigantic central crescent, the
Crescent design also includes a gigantic Tower of Voices: a ninety-three foot
tall tower, formed in the shape of an extruded crescent, surrounded by a vast
array of crescents of trees.

A line drawn across the most obtruding tips of the Tower
crescents has the exact same slightly-north-of-Mecca orientation of the central
crescent. That is, the Tower-crescents are turned exactly 90° to the giant
central crescent (where it is the perpendicular to the crescent-tip line that
points slightly north of Mecca).

Here is the Tower of Voices section of the Crescent
site-plan:

The Tower of Voices is the black dot at the center of the
array of crescents. The blue line drawn across the most obtruding crescent tips
points 1.8° north of Mecca, replicating the orientation of the central crescent.
Without rotating either graphic, this blue arrow can be laid exactly on top of
the red arrow that indicates the orientation of the central crescent:

Red and blue make purple. The orientations are identical,
within the pixel resolution of the graphics.

By replicating the orientation of the central crescent in
the Tower of Voices, architect Paul Murdoch is confirming that neither is a
coincidence. The forthcoming book Crescent of Betrayal exposes numerous
such confirmations in Murdoch’s design. It is jam packed to the gills with
Islamic and jihadist design elements, all of which repeat each other and point
to each other, over and over and over and over again, generally to within a
tenth of a degree.

Exhibit 5: The central
feature of a mosque

A crescent that people face into to face Mecca is called a
“mihrab,” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. Here is
a photograph of the mihrab of the Great Mosque in Cordoba Spain:

The Cordoba mihrab gives the direction to Mecca both
through the orientation of its crescent topped façade, and by the orientation of
the octagonal shaped room inside. (Photo from
lexorient.com’s Cordoba page.)

The mihrab is the focus of a mosque similar to the way that
an altar is the focus of a Christian church. Mosque sermons are delivered from a
pulpit, called a mimbar, that is usually placed either in front of the mihrab or
to the side of the mihrab. Mihrabs can take on a variety of shapes. Many have a
pointed arch shape, but the prototypical mihrab (as found at the Prophet’s
Mosque in Medina) is crescent shaped, like the Cordoba mihrab.

Mihrabs are usually three dimensional. Sometimes the depth
dimension is fairly shallow (hence the common description of a mihrab as a
“prayer niche”). Sometimes the depth dimension is pronounced, as in the Cordoba
mihrab. But not all mihrabs are three dimensional. One prominent exception is
the Muslim prayer-rug, called a “musalla” (translated “small mosque”). The
prayer-rug is a mosque reduced to its bare essentials. It is a personal mihrab,
giving the direction to Mecca only in the horizontal dimensions of width and
depth. Geometrically, the Crescent of Embrace is equivalent to a gigantic Muslim
prayer-rug.

There are about a dozen typical mosque features.
Crescent of Betrayal will detail how every one of these typical mosque
features is realized in the Crescent of Embrace design, all on the same epic
scale as Murdoch’s half-mile wide mihrab. Further, these mosque features exhaust
the entire design. There is literally nothing in the entire Crescent of Embrace
that is not readily interpretable as a typical mosque feature, realized on an
epic scale. Included in these mosque features are a host of
terrorist-memorializing features. (Most grand mosques are memorial mosques.) Not
only is the Crescent of Embrace slated to be the world’s largest mosque, it is a
terrorist-memorial mosque.

Exhibit 6: The
Mecca-oriented crescent is still present in redesign

At the end of November 2005, a Bowl of Embrace redesign was
announced. The Bowl of Embrace (today called simply The Flight 93 Memorial)
leaves every Islamic and jihadist element of the original Crescent of Embrace
completely intact. Virtually the only change is the addition of a few trees to
west side of the circle that the original crescent partly inscribed:

Screenshots
of Paul Murdoch's half-mile wide central crescent, both from the original
Crescent of Embrace site-plans (left) and from the site-plans for the Bowl of
Embrace redesign (right).

Ignoring the re-coloring, about the only visible change is
the additional arc of trees on the left side of the memorial. This change does
not affect any of the mosque features of Murdoch’s design. In particular, it
leaves Murdoch’s giant Mecca-oriented mihrab completely intact.

As can be seen in the image on the left, the most obtruding
upper tip of the original Crescent of Embrace was not defined by trees. Rather,
it was created by the end of the thousand-foot long, forty-foot tall, Entry
Portal wall. Since the upper crescent-tip was defined by the wall, not by trees,
adding a few trees out beyond the end of the concrete wall does nothing to alter
the presence or definition of the original upper crescent-tip. The bottom
crescent tip is also unchanged in the redesign. The last red maple tree on the
bottom of the Bowl of Embrace remains exactly where it was in the original
Crescent of Embrace design. With its defining features unchanged, the giant
mihrab is unchanged.

To understand how the additional
trees are irrelevant to Murdoch’s mosque design, just note that, like the
Christian cross, a Muslim prayer-rug, or a mihrab, is a self-contained religious
construct. It should be placed in an area that is clean and fit for prayer, but
other than that, its meaning is unaffected by what may be around it. All
architect Paul Murdoch did was plant some additional trees behind his giant
mihrab/prayer-rug, which is no different than a Muslim placing a prayer-rug in
front of some trees. The trees make no difference to the presence or meaning of
the prayer-rug/mihrab at all.

To
see how overtly the upper tip of the original Crescent of Embrace is still in
place, look at this graphic from the redesign:

The
upper tip of the original Crescent of Embrace was the end of the towering Entry
Portal wall. The end of the entry portal wall remains completely unchanged in
the Bowl of Embrace redesign (shown). (Artist’s
rendering by Aleksander Novak-Zemplinski.]

The
only significant change in the redesign is the addition of the trees on the far
left of this image. These trees are not even in the field of vision of a person
facing into the crescent (towards the right side of the image). Thus they do not
even affect a person’s perception of the giant Mecca oriented crescent/mihrab,
never mind the mihrab’s presence or integrity.

What was startling about the original design is the
nakedness of its crescent and star configuration. The Bowl of Embrace redesign
makes the Islamic crescent a bit less naked, but that is all it does. Murdoch’s
just added a few irrelevant trees, planted to the rear of a person facing into
his central crescent. In effect, he put a fake beard on. For his second pass a
gate-security, he wrote “not a bomb” on his bomb, and the Memorial Project waved
him through.

Great circle calculationsMost Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca by the great-circle or
shortest-distance method. A variety of great-circle calculators are available
online. The Kansas City Amateur Television Group has one posted
here.

Visiting the Flight 93 crash-site with Google Earth shows the coordinates of the point of impact to be 40:03:07N by
78:54:17W. A Google Earth visit to Mecca shows coordinates of 21:25:48N by
39:49:12E. Punching these numbers into the KCATV calculator, the direction to
Mecca from the crash-site comes up as 55.19 degrees (measured clockwise from
north).

Screen-shot of great-circle calculator. Different
calculators use different assumptions about the shape of the Earth, but they all
yield directions to Mecca from the crash site that are within a tenth of a
degree of 55.2.

Screen-shots of graphicsTo take a screenshot of a graphic on a Windows PC, press “alt” + “print
screen” at the same time. A screen-shot of your top window is now on your clip-board and can be
pasted into a graphics program.

Arctangent calculationsFor those who graphics programs do not calculate polar coordinates, the
arctangent function provides a simple way to convert rise and run in pixels into
slope in degrees. (Plain-Jane Microsoft Paint has pixel counters at the lower
right of the screen.)

For any right triangle, the tangent function of an acute angle A is defined as
the ratio of the side opposite A to the side adjacent to A. Tangent (A) =
(a/b).

Applying the arctangent function to both sides of this
equation leaves the equality intact:

Arctangent (tangent(A)) = arctangent (a/b).

The arctangent function is the inverse of the tangent
function, so applying both functions to A just leaves A. That means:

A = arctangent (a/b), which is just what we need.
Microsoft paint allows us to measure a and b in pixels, and we want to know the
implied angle A.

To translate into degrees from north, subtract A from 90.

If you copy the crescent-bisector graphic
above and paste it into Microsoft Paint, you can use Paint's pixel counting tool
(activates with line tool) to find that the bisector has a run of about 277
pixels and a rise of about 206 pixels. Arctangent (206/277) = 36.64. Subtract
from 90 to get degrees clockwise from north of 53.3 (which is 1.83º
north of the exact Mecca direction of 55.19º clockwise from north).